Rob Zombie Interviews Glenn Danzig Nov. 1996
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Rob Zombie: You know, this records totally different than the
other Danzig records. Is this what you wanted to do with the
other band that you couldn't accomplish and that's why you needed
new people or is this just...?
Glenn Danzig: Yeah, partly that, I mean I'm sure I could've used
Eerie but then again I couldn't of used him because his head is
in a different place. He wants to do, you know, that stuff he
wants to do. Like, you know, that bluesy stuff like Stevie Ray
and the Allman Brothers and I hate that stuff, you know? I would
make those guys play that on a different bus. I'd make them go
on the crew bus. I don't wanna be on the same bus where they're
playing Allman Brothers, you know? I'm not about that. I was
like, that's one of the reasons I started a punk band was because
of that 70s stuff. So, yeah but also the technology, I mean
there's really no, you know what I mean. Rubin hated that stuff,
the technology. He didn't know what to do. Danzig 3 and 4 were
both, you know, I wanted the guy I worked with on this, Bill
Kennedy. I wanted him to work on those records and Rubin told me
he tried to get in touch with him and he wasn't available. When
I talked to Kennedy he was like, no one ever called me and as a
matter of fact, at those time periods, I was free. So it's just
more of Rubin not wanting his band to go in a certain direction.
RZ: It seemed like he liked you guys being some stripped down
guitar band.
GD: That was the first thing he wanted which maybe on the first
record I agreed with a little but I still missed a lot of the
stuff I did in Samhain on there and that's something Eerie and I
have talked about over the years. That's why he (Rubin) was
kicked off the third record and I produced it.
RZ: Yeah, 'cause the third record is like...
GD: It's more moody.
RZ: Yeah, it's all dense and it's not so...
GD: That's the stuff I like and that's what, yeah the new record
is just me going crazy with stuff and bringing back a lot of
stuff. I like the tribal drums and taking elements of this and
that that I really like. That's one of the things I liked about
your last record too, the Astrocreep record.
RZ: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause everyone always bags on the technology
like all of a sudden you're some fake disco band but...
GD: I don't think so.
RZ: I mean it's there so...
GD: It's how you use it.
RZ: ...I mean you use it. I mean it's not like, you know, it's
not a crutch. It's just you can't achieve that effect any other
way unless you can have like 12 drummers on stage.
GD: This record blew out the speakers in my car. No disco record
can do that. There were a lot of things I wanted to do. I
wanted to put out a really cool record that was doing something
that nobody else really, at the time, was doing, you know. There
are very few people doing it, you know, melding, like, elements
of techno and industrial, or what's called industrial, actually
it's really just blowing stuff up in the studio.
RZ: Yeah, I mean there's only a couple bands. It seems like
there's a few bands that have a sound and everyone specifically
copies...
GD: I didn't wanna do that. I still wanted to do what I always
do, which is the singing, and the, you know, different stuff,
tribal stuff that I did in Samhain. I wanted to bring a lot of
that back. Like Blackacidevil and Deep, some of the drums that
come in later. There's a few songs on there where I have Joey
just, like, go crazy on the drums. I missed a lot of that stuff.
Rubin hates toms.
RZ: He's got, like, that AC/DC fetish.
GD: Exactly. Eventually I think what happened was, I grew out of
having Rick involved and he wasn't really involved anyway. You
know, coming down 15 minutes at the end of the night when you're
ready to leave at 2 or 3 in the morning is not producing the
records so... you know.
RZ: How involved was he on the third record?
GD: He wasn't at all.
RZ: Yeah, 'cause the third record sounds a lot like this record.
I mean, not musically, but just dynamically.
GD: He wasn't involved at all. Well, he was against, on the
fourth record, on Can't Speak, he was against that. You know,
what I did was I took one of my songs and played it backwards and
added a track to it.
RZ: He was against it?
GD: He was like, it's not gonna work, and I'm like... And then
he'd come in and go, it's off listen, it's off and I was like,
look, get the hell out of the studio. You know, I'm doing this,
you don't like it, fine goodbye. Then he was just like, well, I
like it but I don't think anyone else will so we should... And I
was like, look it doesn't matter. It ended up being a buzz clip
on MTV.
RZ: It would be cool to see what people think, because...
GD: So far, reaction's pretty good.
RZ: I think it's awesome but it is pretty fucked up from what
people would be expecting.
GD: Well, you know what? That's tough for them. After Mother
became a hit like 6 years after it was already out, I remember...
RZ: Did that cause problems?
GD: No, I just said, what I said was, I hope you guys don't
expect another Mother on Danzig 4 'cause there ain't. You know,
it's definitely not, you know, it's not Mother.
RZ: Were people hinting at that? Like, let's make another
Mother?
GD: At the record company, you know, you'd be there, like, what I
need is another Mother.
RZ: How about a Grandmother?
GD: You know and they're like, if you give me another song like
mother on this record boy, ooooh... You know what, first off, I
just do the album to do a good album. There ain't gonna be
nothing like Mother on there I can tell you that right now. So
if you're hedging for that, you can go home and kill your wife, I
don't care. Basically like, then my next question is, and what
are you doing telling me what kind of songs should be on a
record? You're a record company weasel. Get out of my face.
Are you in the band? You're not in the band so you know what you
should be saying? Nothing. Get out of here.
RZ: And they probably won't have a job 6 months later anyways.